The Rise of Islam and the Crusades (Introduction to Western Civilization 6.10)

In addition to the disputes between Christians, there were also other challenges that the Christians of the Middle Ages faced. One of the greatest challenges was a new religion, Islam. Muslims, followers of the religion of Islam, spread quickly across the Middle East and North Africa and into Europe, conquering many places that were important to Christians, destroying the last of the Roman Empire, and converting many people from Christianity to Islam.

Islam began with a man named Muhammad, who was born in about 570 in Mecca, a city on the Arabian Peninsula. At the time that Muhammad was born, the Arabs were divided into a number of different tribes which competed for power and wealth. Almost all of the Arab tribes were polytheistic, though there were a few Jews and Christians among them.

Muhammad was very interested in religion from a young age and spent time with the Jews and Christians to learn about their religions. He used to spend time alone in a cave in the mountains outside of Mecca praying and meditating. When he was about 40 years old, he told people that an angel had come to him while he was praying in the cave. He said the angel Gabriel had appeared to him. Gabriel had presented a book to him and ordered him to read from it. Muhammad then memorized and recited the words that Gabriel had given to him over many years. The book that was put together from Muhammad’s recitations is the Quran, the holy book of Islam. In Arabic, the language of the Quran, the word “Quran” means “recital.”

Muslims believe that Muhammad was the last prophet sent by God to earth. Other prophets before him included Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon, and even Jesus. Muslims believe that each of the prophets was sent to bring people to monotheism and to submission to God. When a person becomes a Muslim they say a short creed, called the shahada, proclaiming their belief that “there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet.”

The message of Islam took some time for the Arabs to accept. At first, many rejected Muhammad’s message and fought against him. After years of fighting, Muhammad’s followers were able to take over the city of Mecca, which, as Muhammad’s birthplace, became the holiest city in Islam. Eventually, the Muslims conquered all over the Arabian Peninsula and nearly all of the Arabs converted to Islam.

It was then that the Arabs, now united into a single kingdom and a single religion, began to invade the lands around the Arabian Peninsula. Within just a few centuries, the Muslims were able to conquer a vast empire that stretched from India in the east to Spain in the west. Along the way, the Muslims conquered or destroyed many empires which had dominated those areas for hundreds of years.

One of the empires the Muslims was the Byzantine Empire, what remained of the Eastern Roman Empire. As the Muslims steadily conquered the lands of the Byzantine Empire, including Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, the Byzantine emperor sent messages to the Pope begging him for help. Although the churches had split apart from each other, the Christians of Western Europe were eager to help their fellow Christians in the East. The Pope encouraged the Christian kings of Europe to put together an army, exclaiming “Deus Vult!,” which, in Latin, means “God wills it!”

The Christians of armies launched a series of Crusades, a word which means “Wars for the Cross,” beginning in 1096. At first, the Crusades were successful in recapturing land that had been taken from the Byzantine Empire. As time went on, however, enthusiasm for the Crusades waned among European Christians and the size and strength of the Muslim empire grew. The last few Crusades, launched in the 13th century, were terrible failures for the Christians, who lost all of the land they had taken from the Muslims and were unable to gain anymore. Although there were further attempts to launch a Crusade to reconquer important Christian sites like Jerusalem or to liberate Christian communities under Muslim power, each of these failed and the Byzantine Empire continued to shrink in size and significance.

Finally, in 1453, a Muslim army led by Mehmed II captured the city of Constantinople itself. On May 29, 1453, Mehmed’s army stormed the walls of Constantinople and made their way into the city. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus, dressed in the clothing and armor of a common soldier and died fighting alongside his men. The largest Christian church in the world, the Hagia Sophia, was converted into a mosque, a place of worship for Muslims.

Ironically, the end of the last remaining part of the Roman Empire also led to the end of the Middle Ages. As refugees from the Byzantine Empire poured into Western Europe along with the Greek books and art they took with them, a rebirth of Greek and Roman civilization began to take place in Western Europe. As the old Roman and medieval chapters closed, a new and amazing chapter in Western Civilization was just beginning: the Renaissance.